Mementoes
by jagwriter78
Summary: "Memento. A reminder of the past. A souvenir. A keepsake. A commemoration of the living or the dead." Collection of drabbles.
1. Chapter 1

When he reached the hallway, it was the first time that he noticed that something was slightly off but he couldn't quite figure out what it was. Bending down towards the small bench that stood next to the entrance door, he noticed what exactly it was that had caught his attention. The spot that usually held his boots was empty. He was sure he had placed them exactly where he would place them every night when he came home – on that small bench at the door next to the coat rack.

"Liv," he called out into the empty hallway, "have you seen my boots?"

"Next to the door," came the immediate reply from the back of the house, "just where you always put them."

"They are not there!"

He stared at the empty spot next to a pair of Olivia's dark black boots. He was sure he had taken them off right there last night... except that the spot that usually held his boots was eerily empty.

Suddenly, he felt a tug at his pants which caused him to turn. There, behind him, stood his son, beaming up at him brightly with an almost toothless grin.

"Daddy," the boy began as he held up his arms into the air, "I am you!"

He couldn't suppress a chuckle as he stared down at the boy, "So that's where my boots went."

The six year old trotted around the hallway in a pair of boots that obviously were way too big for him. He had his father's pea coat wrapped around him, dark sleeves and cotton hem dragging across the floor as he took one big step after another, trying to demonstrate a fast and manly stride. He was donning the most earnest look he could muster, eyebrows drawn into a frown, lips squeezed tightly together while he continued his marching up and down the hallway.

"I'm good, yes?"

"Perfect," he replied as he scooped his son into his arms, tickling his sides which elicited immediate laughter from the boy, "you think daddy can have his boots back now, monkey?"

"Can I show mommy first?"

"Fine."

He sat his son back down on the ground and gently swatted his bottom before the boy scampered off in direction of the kitchen with a loud, "moooooooommy!"

He shook his head, the smile never leaving his face as he watched after the little one. Even in times like these, with doomsday looming just around the corner and every day threatening to be the last, with death and decay a constant reminder in his life, his son managed to put a smile on his face, reminding him that there indeed was still a reason for why they all needed to fight. A simple smile that for one moment allowed him to forget what was waiting for him outside that door and that inside these four walls, they were just a normal family.


	2. Chapter 2

She knew they should have zigged when they had zagged. Hindsight is 20/20. Now they sat in the dark in an abandoned warehouse, back to back, hands tied together. The sounds outside had died down aeons ago already. They had left, leaving them behind. Would they come back? She didn't know. Maybe. Maybe not. For an hour, they had tried to loosen the tape that tied together their wrists behind their backs. They had pulled, they had pushed, but the tape hadn't budged. Not even a fraction of an inch. She had been the first one to give in while he continued to pull and to wiggle. Eventually, he had succumb to stillness as well.

They sat in silence, each staring off into the dark distance. They hadn't spoken a word. Not since they had caught them, had knocked them both out cold, had bound them together and locked them into this god forbidden warehouse at the end of nowhere. She knew they couldn't sit in silence forever, but ignoring that was what kept her going right now. She didn't want to talk, at least not to him. There was nothing left to say. The sun that had fallen in through the small window to the side had set hours ago already, telling them they'd been locked away for at least half a day. They would have to come back eventually, wouldn't they? There still were boxes stacked all around them, boxes full of machinery that were begging to be taken.

She sighed, dropping her gaze down to her knees. At least she didn't even have to face him, she thought to herself. That would be the worst. She hadn't really looked at him for weeks, but that didn't mean he hadn't crossed her mind. He did. Every second of the day. That was the worst. No, it wasn't really the worst. What almost killed her this instance was that she could feel his back tightly pressed to hers, and it took all her might not to give in and just lean into him for comfort. And as much as she tried to keep her hands to herself, she still could feel his fingers brush against hers when he made yet another attempt to loosen the tape. She didn't want to allow herself to feel, didn't want to give in to her emotions, but she knew that she was fighting a losing battle right now. That was what was slowly killing her.

He could feel how tense she was, how hard she tried not to lean into him, how her hands shrugged away from his when he accidentally touched them. It hurt. It hurt deeply. She needed time, he knew that, and he was willing to give her all the time she needed. If she would just stop hurting. He had come to accept that what he had done had broken her. Hell, it had broken him as well. Her smile slowly fading from her face as he told her, he would never forget that. He had shattered her whole world in less than a minute with what he had said. A world she had been slowly trying to piece back together, and he had just gone and smashed it into a million pieces. It wasn't what she had needed that moment. She had needed something to hold on to on this side after all she had gone through on the other. And all he had given her was sorrow and despair.

The other side - he still didn't know what exactly had happened. She wouldn't tell. Not him, most of all not him. But she wouldn't talk to anyone else about it either. And that, he knew, was eating her up just as much. She had to have gone through hell, he was sure of that. If she would just let him in, if she would just let anybody in, things would get better. He knew. He'd been through his fair share of hell and back as well. The first time, he had tried to find solace in the bottle. Wodka. Hers had been whiskey. It hadn't worked for him. And it hadn't worked for her. The second time, he had run. That hadn't really worked out either. He should have remembered that all those months ago. The third time he had sought out the fights. Two shiners, a broken nose and three days in jail for drunken bar fighting later, he still didn't feel better. The fourth time... the fourth time, he had just talked. He had talked and talked and talked. He had talked for hours, for days, saying everything that had to be said. No wodka, no whiskey, no running, no fighting. He had just talked. And for the first time in his life, he had felt a lot better. And she could, too, if she just talked.

"Olivia?"

He felt her twitch against him when he said her name, a mere whisper in the stillness of the room. She drew in a sharp breath. Running, that's what she wanted to do right now. Run from him as fast as she could. If she could just keep on running, run from him, run from the world, maybe that would make everything a bit easier. She desperately pulled at the tape again, fiercely, stronger than before. She couldn't be here any longer, so close to him, being reminded every second of his betrayal. She needed to run. Right now. Her movements came to an immediate stop when his fingers curled tightly around her hand.

"Don't."

Her reply to him was terse as she pulled her hand free from his. God, how she had missed his touch, had missed his comfort... it hurt just thinking about it, thinking how close he was. Yet when he actually touched her, tried to comfort her, it hurt even more. Being with him, thinking about him, it hurt as much as not being with him and trying not to think about him. It was a lose/lose situation.

"Just listen, okay?"

He knew there was nothing left to say about them, about what they had lost. But there was a world to be said about the other side, about her, about how to fix at least what had been broken inside her over there.

"What you're going through, I know it's not easy. But bottling it all up is not gonna help. You have to talk about it eventually if you want to deal with it. I am not saying you have to talk to me because, trust me, I know that I am the last person you want to talk to. You've made that quite clear the last few weeks. But you have to talk to someone about it."

"So you just want me to go to some shrink and say, hey, listen, the guy I fell in love with screwed my doppelganger from another universe while I was trapped over there, thinking I was her? Imagine how well that's probably gonna go over," she spat at him, her voice full of rage and anger.

"I am not talking about me and her or about us. I am talking about what happened to you on the other side," he paused for a moment, waiting for her to blow up at him again, but she didn't. All he could hear was her ragged breathing. "What happened to you on the other side, Olivia?"

Her ponytail brushed against the back of his neck, letting him know she was shaking her head. The not knowing what she had gone through was starting to hurt him even more than her rejection. He could live with the fact that she didn't want to be with him anymore. What he couldn't live with, though, was having lost her trust completely. Hell, there was nothing left for him to lose, so he was just gonna try. She could hate him for the rest of her life, but he knew it was going to help her cope, make her get better. And that was all he wanted for her.

"I've got time," he retorted, "it's not like we're gonna go anytime soon. If you wanna give me the silent treatment, that's fine. It's all you've been doing lately. I either get that or I am being yelled at for stuff that's not even my fault. I screwed up. Man, I screwed up royally. Every second of the day, I am being reminded how stupid and how blind I have been. Let the whole world know that Peter Bishop's a fucking moron. I deserve that. And I can live with that, I guess. What I can't live with is seeing you hurt. Part of that is my fault. Okay, it's mostly my fault. I know there's nothing I can do or say to fix that. But part of what's hurting you is what happened to you on the other side. Talk to me, Olivia, please."

"You have no idea," she whispered, her voice almost cracking.

"Right, I have no idea. How could I? You're not talking to me!"

The room fell eerily silent around them after his outburst.

"I'm sorry," he said after a while, "it's just... at the hospital..." he stopped for a moment, trying to gather his words, when he heard a sniffle coming from behind him. Great. Now he had fucked up even more. He wiggled his fingers to the side, tried to turn his wrist which sent a sharp pain up his arm, but he eventually managed to interlace is fingers with hers. And this time, she didn't shrug away. Her trembling fingers curled around his tightly, and he felt her relax just a bit against him.

"You had sharpie markings all over you that looked like Long John Silver's treasure map. Except that x didn't mark the gold. Olivia... what did he do to you?"

He wasn't sure if she was going to reply to him. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to hear exactly about that anymore. Ever since he had been told about the black lines and dots on her back, had seen the pictures they had taken of them... he knew what they were, nobody had to tell him. Anatomy 101, something he had quickly picked up during numerous hours of helping disect bodies in the lab. He had stopped counting the nights that he lay awake, picturing just what exactly his father had been about to do with her. It was a relief though to have finally said it out loud. Yes, talking definitely helped.

"He tried to cut out my brain. For study. "

Her admission came a few minutes later, and it sent a shiver down his spine. How he wanted to turn around and gather her into his arms right now, just to let her know that everything was going to be all right. To reassure him that she was going to be all right.

"I can still remember the feel of that ice cold table they put me on, the sound of that saw..." her voice was breaking, and she stopped shortly, drawing in a sharp breath as a single tear slipped down her cheek, "I was so afraid. All I could think about was that I was gonna die alone and that no one would know. No one would be able to tell Rachel and Ella what had happened to me. And I would never get to see them again."

He squeezed her hand tightly. It was all he could do to comfort her at the moment. He could hear she was crying now, her sobs echoing through the room. Her whole body was trembling against his, her hands shaking. Turning his head sideways, all he could see was her shoulder moving up and down with each sniffle, with each sob. Slowly, he leaned backwards until his head came to rest against hers.

He closed his eyes, trying to keep back the tears that were threatening to fall. He had known that when he was going to confront her, it wasn't going to be easy. Not for her, not for him. He never would have expected it to hurt so deeply though. Anger, rage, it all mingled with the pain he felt. Anger, rage and pain because he hadn't been there for her when she had needed him the most. The awareness that he had been this close to losing her forever. And he finally understood what his betrayal had done to her. It wasn't just about what he had done. It was about what he hadn't done, too. He hadn't been there for her. He hadn't come for her.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

It sounded so lame as he said it but it was all he had to offer. He knew it wasn't going to fix anything, not by a longshot, but at least she had talked to him, had told him what was on her mind. It hurt just as badly as when she had told him that she couldn't be with him.

Desperately, he pulled at the tape again, twisting his hands in each and every direction, trying to loosen the tape just a fraction so he could slip his fingers through. He needed to free himself, needed to gather the sobbing woman that sat slumped against his back into his arms, needed to tell her just as much as he needed to tell himself that he was sorry - sorry for everything that he had done and everything that he hadn't. But most of all, he needed to feel her safe in his arms, to comfort her, to soothe her, when he reassured her that everything was going to be fine.

Twisting his right wrist in such an odd angle, he heard the pop before he felt the pain shoot up his arm. He gasped shortly, biting down on his lip as he continued pushing and pulling, ignoring the throbbing pain that increased with every move. He wasn't going to give in this time. He had let Olivia down before, he wasn't going to do that again.

Tears were starting to threaten his eyes, when with one final twist that sent an almost blinding lightning of pain through his wrist, the tape eventually budged. He tugged at it again, his hands finally coming free as the tape ripped in two. He swung his arms around, quickly looking at his scrapped and bloody wrists before he whirled around to face Olivia.

She sat huddled, knees drawn up to her body, head bowed as she trembled and the occasional sob escaped her. She couldn't face him. Not like this, not after what she had just said. Shoulders slouched, she dropped her hands to her side, scrapping her fingers over the cold asphalt she was sitting on. How much she wanted to lift her eyes and look into those bright blue eyes that she could feel resting on her, to lose herself in the comfort he was trying to offer, to just let it all go and allow herself to heal - and to allow him to help her heal.

But the pain still sat too deep, the pain of knowing that when she had needed him the most, he hadn't been there for her. The pain of knowing that for the better part of her time over there, he hadn't even noticed that she was gone, had been absolutely oblivious that she was being held prisoner in a parallel world.

When his trembling fingers closed around her hands though, picking them up to rest on her knees, she couldn't force herself to ignore him any longer. The first thing she noticed when she looked up at him where the tears threatening to spill, his eyes darkened with pain and sorrow.

"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry," she heard him repeat over and over again like a mantra that was supposed to take away the hurt and free not only him but also her from everything that was making their hearts ache.

The longer she gazed at him, trying desperately not to lose herself in him and just reach out to find comfort in his arms, the more she noticed that while his eyes were shaded with so much heartache and sorrow, there also was this faint sparkle of understanding, of comfort - and of love.

His arms wrapped around her rather suddenly and unexpectedly, pulling her into a tight embrace. And just as suddenly, all the tension that had built up inside her over the last few weeks vanished, the hurt and anger subsided as she slumped against his chest, burying her face in his shoulder and just started to cry. It felt as if a weight had been lifted from her that she hadn't even realized she was carrying. Her tears were falling freely, staining the light gray shirt he was wearing beneath his peacoat. Her sobs echoed through the otherwise silent room while he just rocked her gently, offering her just the kind of comfort she had been seeking ever since she came back.

His fingers were traveling over her hair lightly, his lips tenderly brushing against the top of her hair as he whispered words she didn't pay any attention to. She just wanted to lose herself in him, forget about the world around her, about everything that had been done to her and just _be_. This very moment, it didn't matter anymore what he had done or what he hadn't. What mattered was that she still cared about him and that she needed him more than she was willing to admit.

And he needed her, too. She could feel that in the desperation that he clung to her with, tightening his embrace around her with every sob that spilled from her lips, with every tear that fell from her eyes.

Sitting huddled together crying, locked up in a godforbidden place at the end of the end of nowhere, offered tiny little shreds of hope to Peter that maybe Olivia could forgive him after all - even though he probably would not be able to forgive himself. He couldn't bear losing her completely. He was offering her everything he had to give and was willing to take even the tiniest bit of herself she was offering in return.

Moments like these, when he could be her shoulder to cry, when she would provide him a shred of redemption for what he had done... that was what he needed the most. To know that there would be a tomorrow when he wouldn't wake up and be completely alone. To know that she would be just a phone call away when he needed to talk. To know that even in his darkest moments, she would be the one to pull him back onto his feet. He didn't physically need her for any that, hadn't for the past couple of years. Just the knowledge that Olivia would still be around tomorrow was enough to cling to.

They were making baby steps, he knew that. But they were making them after all. And they were making them together. She had dropped the walls she had put up around her, had confessed to him just how scared and broken she was. She was allowing herself to be vulnerable with him, was allowing him to be her rock in the darkness - without realizing that she was his tether, keeping him grounded in a time when he felt as if he was losing himself over all the hurt he had caused her.

Only time could tell where they were headed. At the moment, he didn't really care because holding her like this in arms in his arms he was sure of one thing: they were going to be fine.


	3. Chapter 3

Just a little something that popped into my head while rewatching The Cure yesterday.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

If there was one thing in the world that Peter Bishop hated the most. It was walking into the bathroom in the morning to find his toothbrush wet and used. The first time he had walked into the bathroom and have found his toothbrush used by his father, he had walked out of the hotel at 1AM in the morning just to get a couple new ones at the drugstore down the road.

The arrangements had been easy. White for Walter. For the better half of their time living together, the older Bishop had actually remembered this one simple thing. White for Walter. However, now staring down at the wet toothbrush in his hand, Peter could just shake his head disbelievingly. How hard could it be to remember one single thing. White for Walter.

"Walter!" he called out frustrated as he dumped the toothbrush back into its usual holding place at the back of the sing, "What did we say about the toothbrushs! White for Walter..."

"Purple for Peter," came the immediate reply from the hallway and a head appeared around the corner, "sorry, I couldn't find a spare one. I figured you wouldn't mind."

Peter couldn't help but smile at the sight in front of him. Hair a tangled mess, one of his shirts loosely draped over her shoulders, her black bra clearly visible as her fingers fidgeted with one of the shirt buttons.

"Dunham, Dunham."

He shook his head slightly as he pulled her into his arms, his lips immediately descending on hers in a tender kiss.

"You owe me a new toothbrush."

"I think that can be rectified," Olivia replied in the most serious tone she muster, before her lips curled into a wicked, loopsided grin, "How about orange for Olivia?"


End file.
